The Office on the Commemoration of the UN’s 75th Anniversary issued an update on the results of a global consultation on people’s fears and hopes for the future, on which respondents are “remarkably unified” across the world. Since January 2020, over one million respondents have participated, covering all UN Member States and Observer States.

Climate change and the destruction of the natural environment are most respondents’ “most overwhelming” future concerns.

The key findings of the update report, issued on 21 September 2020 for the UN’s 75th anniversary, include:

• The immediate priority of most respondents everywhere, with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, is improved access to basic services including health care, safe water and sanitation, and education;
• The next main priority is to send greater support to the places hardest hit by the pandemic to address poverty, inequalities, and unemployment;
• Respondents believe health, education, and women’s rights will improve in the immediate future;
• However, most participants in all regions are worried about climate change and the destruction of the natural environment: this is respondents’ “most overwhelming medium- and long-term concern.”
• The UN is essential for tackling global challenges, in the view of 74% of respondents, and it is perceived to be contributing most in the areas of upholding human rights and promoting peace;
• Participants overwhelmingly called for the UN to be “more inclusive of the diversity of actors in the 21st century,” including civil society, women, youth, vulnerable groups, cities and local authorities, businesses, regional organizations, and other international organizations; and
• The UN should also be more innovative, according to participants, including with “stronger leadership and more consistency in exercising its moral authority.”

The report also provides: an introduction to the UN75 initiative, the five data streams that fed into the findings of the latest report (between January and August 2020), and methodological details, among other annexes.

In a guest article published on the SDG Knowledge Hub on 21 September 2020, Fabrizio Hochschild, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Preparations for the Commemoration of the UN’s 75th Anniversary, writes that the listening process will continue until the end of 2020. The final report in early 2021 is expected to inform the Secretary-General’s recommendations to UN Member States for revitalizing and reimagining the UN to better serve today’s challenges and future generations. [Publication: The Future We Want The United Nations We Need: Update on the Work of the Office on the Commemoration of the UN’s 75th Anniversary]

IISD’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin is providing reporting and analysis of the UN’s 75th anniversary commemoration event on 21 September 2020.